According to a report this week by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the National Mining Association threatened to take legal steps in February following the release of a PIB by MSHA on December 8, 2006 which outlined regulations requiring emergency oxygen supplies equalling four days, or 96 hours.

 

On March 27, NMA’s Bruce Watzman penned a letter to MSHA assistant secretary of labor Richard Stickler asking the agency to consider a 30-day deadline extension for mines to turn in their required Emergency Response Plan revisions. The original deadline was March 12 for all operations to have plans for emergency breathable air supply put in place and submitted to MSHA, according to the letter obtained by International Longwall News.

 

NMA spokeswoman Carol Raulston told ILN Wednesday that the federal agency refused both the earlier request to withdraw the PIB as well as its extension request citing, according to media reports, “a compelling need to ensure that operators meet their statutory responsibility”.

 

She also confirmed that, in response, the NMA had indeed filed a lawsuit against MSHA on March 20 with the US District Court in Washington, DC.

 

The NMA’s Luke Popovich told the press Tuesday that its lawsuit is seeking a requirement by MSHA to follow its own protocol for rule making, which includes a period for public comment and questions. As of now, he said, it is “going back to a one-size-fits-all way of doing business that doesn't help anybody”.

 

While representatives for MSHA did not immediately respond to ILN’s request for comment, an April 2 letter obtained by the Post-Gazette from Stickler to Watzman seemed to take issue with a lack of detail being found in the ERP plans some operators had already submitted.

 

“We were disappointed that many operators chose to provide the agency with generic language that failed to detail the specific and critical methods in which breathable air will be provided to trapped miners,” Stickler wrote in the correspondence.

 

“We strongly urge you to advise your members to address deficiencies in their ERP and post-accident breathable air submissions as soon as possible.”

 

MSHA’s bulletin, available for review at http://www.msha.gov/regs/complian/PIB/2007/pib07-03.asp, recommends emergency air supplies in the form of compressed air or compressed oxygen cylinders storable in caches throughout the mine or in an operation’s refuge chambers.

 

Much of Watzman’s letter to MSHA, though the scenario has now progressed to a legal battle, still holds true with regard to the industry’s priority: the health and safety of all miners every day.

 

“As you are well aware, the decisions operators are being required to make are critically important,” Watzman wrote. “These cannot be made in haste nor can they be made in a vacuum.”